John Cowan - Is it stress?

There can be lots of things wrong in family life. You can be arguing and having lots of fights with your spouse or your kids. You can be feeling low and unloved. Maybe the kids are uncooperative and moody and getting into trouble. Lots of different problems but sometimes a good starting point to getting things right again is to ask yourself, “What is the major stress in our life at the moment?” If you have sick parents or big bills due or you’re starting a new job or you’ve moved house or wondering if you’re pregnant – you’ve got stress. And stress has a habit of popping up symptoms that don’t even seem to be related to what’s causing the stress – I mean, why should a crisis at work be causing you to have an argument with your spouse about wet towels on the floor? Well it just does. And knowing that can help soothe things down enormously. You might not be able to fix the cause of the stress straight away, but at least you know what the real problem is.

Here’s another thing – your partner may be stressed by things that don’t stress you at all. You might be quite comfortable with a huge debt but it could be freaking your spouse right out. And if you don’t care about your partners stress... then you’ve got even bigger problems in your relationship.